Vince Cable

John Vincent "Vince" Cable (9 May 1943-) was the Lib Dem MP for Twickenham from 1 May 1997 to 30 March 2015 (succeeding Toby Jessel and preceding Tania Mathias) and from 9 June 2017 (succeeding Tania Mathias). He also served as Leader of the Lib Dems from 15 October to 18 December 2007 (succeeding Menzies Campbell and preceding Nick Clegg) and from 20 July 2017 (succeeding Tim Farron).

Biography
John Vincent Cable was born in York, Yorkshire, England in 1943 to a working-class Conservative-supporting family. While attending Cambridge University, he joined the Liberal Party, but he switched to the Labour Party in 1966. After graduation from Glasgow, Cable went on to work as an economic adviser to Kenya from 1966 to 1968 and then to the Commonwealth Secretary-General in the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1970s, he became a Labour councillor in Glasgow, but he defected to the UK Social Democratic Party in 1992. In 1997, he was elected as the Lib Dem MP for Twickenham, and he became Deputy Leader in 2006 and briefly acted as leader in 2007 after Menzies Campbell's resignation. In 2010, he became President of the Board of Trade under David Cameron and Nick Clegg's coalition government, and, following the 2017 snap election and Tim Farron's resignation, Cable was elected as the new Lib Dem leader unopposed.